Rebirth
by Tiros Sabrant
Summary: The second chapter is up! Come read what happens to Alice after her last episode...
1. Memories

Layer: 14_Memories_

Memories are all we retain. They help us to remember our friends and families. Take away our memories of someone and they become dead to us. Forgetting who one person is may lead to forgetting who you are. Was your life a lie? How did you end up that way? Trying to remember these things about ourselves can sometimes be more painful than forgetting.

Alice walked to her school, late to teach her class. It was ironic; she had become a teacher at the very school she used to go to. She had a nagging feeling she had forgotten something, but pressed on due to her lack of free time. As she walked, Alice passed by a child who was wearing a school uniform. Staring out into space as Alice walked by, the child, seemed familiar. Her hair bound at one side by a string, and looking as if she wished to not be seen.

"Hello there, do I know you?" Alice said as she stopped at the curb. The child just smiled and walked towards Alice, not stopping as if she was looking through her.

"Are you alright? What's wrong?"

Alice then watched as the child walked straight through her, Undaunted by what had just happened and heading straight for the school. Alice stood there as if she had just had a knife stabbed into her gut, and someone had just twisted it. She had had this feeling before, as if she knew who the child was. A cold chill shot down her spine as she then passed out from the confusion of what had just happened. She laid on the curb in a slump, holding her face in fear of loosing herself. Alice never made it to the school that day.

Amnesia is a peculiar ailment. There is no fast or definite way to cure it. All a person can do is hope that one suffering from amnesia will remember themselves and the past after seeing familiar things. Something even more peculiar is selective memory. Like amnesia, a person forgets completely of a past event, but it is only one period in that person's life. They most likely choose to forget that part. When memories of these types surface, they can cause hallucinations and some physical pain due to stress.

Several days later, Alice was teaching her last class of the day. She could not put out of her mind what had happened several days before. The child obviously was someone she once knew, but Alice had not remembered anything about her, as if something wouldn't let her reach the memories. Just then, she peered through the door as a student walked in.

"What is it Tsubasa? Do you need Math help again?" Alice asked as the student walked to a desk. Tsubasa looked back to her teacher with a polite smile, saying

"I just forgot my Pocket Planner.... This is strange, there's a message from that person again."

"What are you talking about?" Alice said curiously.

"The students have been receiving E-mails from a girl claiming to be a student here, but nobody has heard of her before."

"Does this student have a name? Maybe it's someone I might know"

"Well, let me check. I saved the previous message.... Rain or Reign was it? Oh! Here it is, someone named Lain"

A sharp pain shot through Alice's head from the mention of that name, and the flash of an image appeared in her mind, of her talking to a girl on the street. She had her hair bound in the same way, wearing a pink jacket with some casual attire, making her look younger than she really was. Alice held her head sweating as one of the teachers walked in with Tsubasa at her side.

"Alice! Are you alright?" said the teacher with a nervous, but firm tone. The words did not reach Alice though, as she breathed heavily, hyperventilating from the sudden shock of the image.

"Lain..." Alice said with a weak voice as she fell into the teacher's arms, staying limp and looking sicker by the minuet. Why was this name so important, and how did it have anything to do with her?

To be continued...


	2. Rebirth

Rebirth Present day...   
Present time... 

Layer 15: _Rebirth_

Have you ever woke up from a dream, to find that something has changed while you had slept? Life can be fleeting to us, weather we realize this or not. In the blink of an eye, we can miss alot of what has gone on in the world.Even the wired itself cannot compensate for lost time. Time is and always be as it has, an enigma...   
  


Alice walked sluggishly toward the medical clinic. She was told to take it easy for the next day or so, and to see a doctor about her sudden fainting spells. Slowly and with a dazed look on her face, she made her way down the street. At one point, almost being hit by a car, followed by the usual shout, and the usual friendly gesture from the driver. Alice didn't pay much attention though, her mind was set on other things. A bell chimed as she walked through the door, as the assistant looked at Alice with a cold stare. She then fixed her glasses without making any further eye contact and said, 

"The doctor will see you in a moment." 

With that, Alice sat down in the waiting room. Her thoughts compiled in her head like the piles of trash would at a dump. Slowly growing, and making a horid stench she could not ignore. Who was this "Lain"? And why would this bother her now? Why couldn't it have just left her alone. Just then, Alice heard her name called by the doctor, who stood by the door with a clipboard in hand. She walked into the next room the same way she made her way to the clinic. Her mind too jumbled to really make sense of anything. She sat down as the doctor began to ask her random questions, which she barely answered with a straight voice. After several moments, a gunshot was heard as both the doctor and Alice jumped.   


Some people believe that humans just end when they die. Others believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, the rebirth of a soul after death in another corporeal form. Humans have relentlessly tried to seek the answers to life in their beliefs, but none have ever come to a sure answer as to what really will happen. Most believe that they are part of a plan, intertwined by fate. Unwraveling the misteries of life and seeking our fate is the challenge we all have to face...   


Alice awoke several minuets later, dazed and confused. Her clothes stained in the blood of the doctor and the assistant who lay next to her. As she realized this, a horrific shriek of fear came from her mouth. Then a smaller, higher pitched shriek was heard. A child, clinging to the bottom of her pant leg. She looked only 3 or 4 months of age, wearing a pink coat and a tiny bear hat. The girl was crying and shouing a shocking word. Alice began to cry, hugging the child who continually shouted to her the same word.   
  
"Mommy!" 


End file.
